Obese kids

[Tez]

As to peace in the middle east, I do know one way. It's neither socially nor environmentally sound, though. After it was done, there would be peace, though.

I think we have similar ideas - We give everyone 24 hours to get out of Jerusalem, and threaten a nuclear strike. All the fundmentalists of all the religions obsessed with this damn city will rush their followers there, in an attempt to dissuade us. And then we nuke em.

In a few thousand years, when its no longer hot, people can start fighting about it again...

 

[SquishyDave]

Nuke the holy lands? You guys are so lame Think biblical, I always mantain they should raze the lot then salt the earth. It keeps with the theme of the whole middle east then, and they could ask for volunteers, who wouldn't love lighting a whole lot of fires?

On topic I think Skeptic was perhaps a little harsh, Earthborn did have links to back up her arguments, it wasn't all just her opinion.

 

[Ove]

Or raise their pocket money and tell them: "From now on I won't give you any sweets. If you want it, you can buy it yourself."

This way you can still limit their intake, but they also have freedom and you don't have to fight everytime your child wants candy and you think it should have. It also is a lot easier to limit their candy intake with a measurable amount instead of by a dozen ad-hoc decisions during the day.

For this to work, it is of course a good idea to start early, and be able to ignore the criticism by other parents who disapprove of giving such freedom to a child and prefer to be emotionally blackmailed by their childern several times a day."

It gets more and more obvious that you have never tried to raise children.

Did he like his teacher? Did he make him interested and keep him motivated in doing these old-fashioned-spelling exercises? Or did the teacher just force them on the children? There is a big difference.

Yes, he liked his teacher but the spelling exercises WAS forced on them in as much as they had to do them each week despite the fact that they hated doing them.

In the video I linked to you can see that small children usually eat until they are full, which means they often eat less than what they need as energy intake. Older children who learned to 'clean their plate' have often learned to overeat and have no correct concept anymore of what is a reasonable portion. They will clean their plate, no matter how much you give them, even a double portion of what they need disappears in their stomach.

I am not advocating the "Clean your plate" philosophy i said that when it was forced on me 75 % of what was on the plate was vegetables.

I also once heard of a study (a long time ago, it will probably be difficult to find a reference for it) where children were allowed to choose for themselves what they wanted to eat every day. Of course the first few weeks, it was mostly burger and fries, chocolate and cake... But they grew tired of that and after a while they asked for meals that were quite balanced. Of course, they didn't know it was balanced: it was just what they wanted to eat at that time. Of course none of the jucky stuff some parents push on their children because 'it is healthy' was asked for.

Sounds a bit like the "Summerhill" scool ideas wher children was allowed to decide themselves when they needed to learn something. In the end they turned out just like all other kids. It worked BECAUSE it happened in a secluded place (boarding scool) with NO contact to the "outside world". Similarily your experiment might work on a desolated island without tv commercials, friends, etc. but i doubt it would work in the real world.

 

[Ove]

Sounds great. Now tell me: how sure are you that the meals you make have fewer calories than a meal at a fast food restaurant?

Reasonably, yes. You see I decide what goes into my food. I can make high-fat food and does so occationally but mostly i go for "in the middle stuff". I have OTOH seen some studies done by an independant institute in Denmark about Fast food. More than half of a meal is fat.

Fast food is often demonized as unhealthy, but no one ever blames french cuisine. Did you know that if you eat a single meal in a french restaurant you eat the equivalent in fat of a whole pack of butter? And that's just the fat! There is no way fast food is worse than gourmet food. But it gets all the blame.

That is just plain b******* and it demonstrates to me that your knowledge of cooking is about the same as your knowledge of raising children. True in French cooking there are some extremely high-fat dishes, Pate de Foie Gras f. inst but there are also some very low fat dishes plus the fact that much french cooking is made vith olive oil which is considerably healthier than animal fat. I don't have to remind you of what kind of fat is used for making fries do i? Again this sounds to me like one of the myth's people cling to in order to convince themselves that McD really isn't that bad after all.

 

[Earthborn]

It gets more and more obvious that you have never tried to raise children.

Of course you forget that I was a child myself once, and have some experience with being rasied from that point of view.

You could also try to explain why you think it wouldn't work instead of constantly claiming that what I say shows 'I obviously never tried to raise children', which seems to me like an ad-hominem attack.

So why do you think it wouldn't work? Have you tried it?

i said that when it was forced on me 75 % of what was on the plate was vegetables.

Which still means that you were taught to eat more when you already feld full. You still learned to ignore that feeling. If children need to learn what are reasonable portions, it is irrelevant what is on their plates. The amount of it is what counts.

It worked BECAUSE it happened in a secluded place (boarding scool) with NO contact to the "outside world".

Why do you assume this is so?

Similarily your experiment might work on a desolated island without tv commercials, friends, etc. but i doubt it would work in the real world.

Please explain why it wouldn't work. Please explain why we shouldn't try to reform the world so it would work, and instead continue to raise children in a way that we know leads to obesity in many of them?

Reasonably, yes. You see I decide what goes into my food. I can make high-fat food and does so occationally but mostly i go for "in the middle stuff".

So, have you counted the calories? You can find the caloric value of some fastfood meals to compare with, in the transcript of the video I linked to above. Weigh the portions your children eat and tell us your findings.

That is just plain b******* and it demonstrates to me that your knowledge of cooking is about the same as your knowledge of raising children.

I have an uncle who is a gourmet cook. Of course you can say he is a liar.

I don't have to remind you of what kind of fat is used for making fries do i?

I never ate a fry in my life that wasn't fried in vegetable fat. It may be a difference in food culture between Denmark and the Netherlands.

It also shows that parents still have control over how healthy children eat, even if those kids are allowed to choose what to eat themselves. When the kid wants to eat fries, the parents have the choice how to make them. They can choose between animal fat (bad choice), vegetable fat (better choice) or oven fries which contain very little fat (best choice).

Again this sounds to me like one of the myth's people cling to in order to convince themselves that McD really isn't that bad after all.

This sounds to like one of the myths people cling to in order to demonize fast food.

I know for a fact (okay, MacDonald's folder's) that they fry their fries in vegetable fat. In fact the vegetable burger menu they sell in the Netherlands includes fries and was approved of by a national vegetarian organization.

And no, I don't say it is healthy. All I claim is that it isn't as unhealthy as people claim it to be.

 

[Ove]

I know for a fact (okay, MacDonald's folder's) that they fry their fries in vegetable fat. In fact the vegetable burger menu they sell in the Netherlands includes fries and was approved of by a national vegetarian organization.

The Danish consuner council made a test on burgers some time ago. They found that a Big Mac Menu consisted of 53% animal fat. Perhaps you are right they do fry their fries in vegetable fat but still....

If your uncle is a gourmet cook then i really dont understand how you can make a statement like the one with a pound of butter pr french meal.

It has been fun debating with you, at least let's agree to disagree, but i'm off on vacation in half an hour, which means 10 days without a computer, so well have to finish for now. Have a nice summer.

 

[RSLancastr]

I have twice confronted such parents (actually once in MacDonalds, once at some diner) and expressed vociferous dismay at their actions. (What I really hoped to do was give their kids something to think about.)

What you really ended up doing was humiliating them. What this more likely acheived was that when they went home, they ended up eating even more crap, to try and forget what you did to them.

It borders on child abuse IMO.

Yes, as does your attempt to publicly humiliate them.

I can understand your personal outrage, and your concern for those children. But what you did was wrong, rude, and inexcusable.

My children were not obese, but even if they were, had you come up to us at a restaurant and done this, my children would have gotten a brief lesson in the aerodynamic properties of a jerk.

NOTE: After rereading your post, I realized you do not say whether you "confronted the parents" in front of the kids, or elsewhere. If it was elsewhere, then my statements above do not apply, and I apologize.

 

[Earthborn]

I agree with you RS. I don't think people have the right to judge parents decision to take their children to MacDonald's, whatever the size of these children.

This reminds of an interview I once saw about an obese woman, who desperately tried to lose weight. For a whole month she didn't eat anything! After that she bought one single item of junk food and was confronted by one of those self righteous skinny people who felt the need to confront her on her 'disgusting eating habits'.

Tez, have you asked these parents what their children ate before they went to MacDonald's? Perhaps these kids were on a diet, carefully counting their calories, and their dietricians told them that if they save up calories by eating even less calories than what their prescribed diets were demanding, there would be no harm in going to MacDonald's once in a while. Yes, dietricians do say that: they don't try to rob children of every pleasure in their lives.

Why did you assume that these parents regurlarly brought their kids to MacDonald's if you only met them once?

 

[Skeptic]

Earthborn--

You misunderstand me, probably due to my trademark cynicism. I do not think you are an ignoramous, or that you are stupid, or that your opinions are worthless. I don't think anything of the sort, and if I did make that impression, I apologize.

What I am saying is simply that these things are a LOT MORE COMPLICATED THAN YOU REALIZE, AND THAT ONLY EXPERIENCE CAN TEACH YOU WHAT THE REAL SITUATION IS. This is not because you are ill-read on the subject or dogmatic, but simply because there are certain properties of these situations that can only be learned from experience, and cannot be explained to an "outsider".

I know, I know: this sounds terribly "elitist". But what can I say? It's the truth, in this case.

 

[jj]

It gets more and more obvious that you have never tried to raise children.

And why is that?

I am not advocating the "Clean your plate" philosophy i said that when it was forced on me 75 % of what was on the plate was vegetables.

Let me guess, the boiled-grey kind, too?
Similarily your experiment might work on a desolated island without tv commercials, friends, etc. but i doubt it would work in the real world.

In our house, there is candy of several sorts in the kitchen pantry closet. There is a bowl more or lress full of whatever's in the pantry in the kitchen. The kids are free to fill the bowl when and if they want, raid the bowl, raid the pantry (well, for candy, cereal, crackers, whatever....), or whatever. There's also cheddar, other cheese, fresh fruit, etc, in the fridge. There's usually homemade bread and some kind of desert thing lurking about too.

What happens? They don't sit there and eat endlessly, they don't pig out on the candy (but don't be a steak, which is also I suppose questionable food), and they are still just on the light side of average for their height. (Yes, according to weight one is up there, but her height is even farther up there, and she looks like we keep forgetting to feed her. Hah!) Both have shown a clear cycle of "start to gain a bit of weight, eat a lot, and then GROW LIKE A WEED" until now.

Mom and dad aren't skinny, interestingly enough. I had the "clean your plate" type of parents, and the spouse had the kind who thought "you're getting fat" all the time.

We might have exercised some regulation if we saw any problems, but we haven't.

Note, this is all strictly anecdotal, it could all be "silent genes" that manifested after several generations of silence, I suppose.

 

[Earthborn]

What I am saying is simply that these things are a LOT MORE COMPLICATED THAN YOU REALIZE

I've been arguing that obesity is caused by environmental and genetic factors, and therefore obese people cannot fully be held accountable, but also that they can't fully blame their genes and be excused completely.

I've been arguing that parents do have a responsibility to feed their children healthy, but to do this they need to do things that seem counter intuitive to them, and they are under societal pressure to do what is the exact opposite of what they should do.

I've been arguing that kids need to be learned how to eat responsibly, but when they not taught young enough, it will be difficult to right what went wrong.

I've been arguing that some foods are better than others, but we shouldn't blame 'junk food' or candy solely of all societal ills, as many foods that are considered healthy or even high quality are causing similar problems.

I've been arguing that although obese people should be limiting their diets to reduce their risks of disease, this requires that we demand of them to have a much greater level of self control than is asked of all other people.

Now who is acknowledging best that things are a lot more complicated than people realize? You or me?

but simply because there are certain properties of these situations that can only be learned from experience, and cannot be explained to an "outsider".

Which is exactly why I don't present my own arguments, but those of "insiders", even experts!

And why don't you try to explain it? Sure it may be difficult to explain it to an "outsider" (although: I am human, nothing human can be alien to me!) but why don't you just try me. I think I'm quite smart, so if you actually present an argument I can probably follow it.

An old saying comes to mind:
"If you don't explain it, I won't understand. But if you can't explain it, you don't understand!"

I don't think anything of the sort, and if I did make that impression, I apologize.

Yes, you give that impression. In fact, it seems to me you do little else. And I find it hard to accept that apology as it seems such a cheap apology to me.

Why don't you start by making a positive contribution to an argument for once. (Or post a link to a thread where you think you did.) Maybe you should start with your favourite subject and present your own idea on how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved or slightly bettered in a way that doesn't demand of the Palestinians to unconditionately do whatever the Israelis want them to... (or vice versa)

 

[jj]

I've been arguing that obesity is caused by environmental and genetic factors, and therefore obese people cannot fully be held accountable, but also that they can't fully blame their genes and be excused completely.

Now, now, you DO NOT UNDERSTAND. You're not taking one or another extremist viewpoint. That's not allowed!!!!

(hope the sarcasm is evident)

 

[Tez]

I agree with you RS. I don't think people have the right to judge parents decision to take their children to MacDonald's, whatever the size of these children.

This reminds of an interview I once saw about an obese woman, who desperately tried to lose weight. For a whole month she didn't eat anything! After that she bought one single item of junk food and was confronted by one of those self righteous skinny people who felt the need to confront her on her 'disgusting eating habits'.

Tez, have you asked these parents what their children ate before they went to MacDonald's? Perhaps these kids were on a diet, carefully counting their calories, and their dietricians told them that if they save up calories by eating even less calories than what their prescribed diets were demanding, there would be no harm in going to MacDonald's once in a while. Yes, dietricians do say that: they don't try to rob children of every pleasure in their lives.

Why did you assume that these parents regurlarly brought their kids to MacDonald's if you only met them once?

Earthborn, I have only done it twice (despite many other oppourtunities- this is not my crusade) and both times it was because I saw the parents grossly over-feeding the children in front of my eyes. I'm talking gorging - being fed more than I, as an adult, could possibly eat.

And these poor kids were severly overweight.

However - I dont think I can defend what I did by rational argument - I confronted them in irrational anger (though I should point out it wasn't done venemously or by making a large scene.)

The reactions I received were quite different: One set of parents looked sheepish, and basically agreed with me. The other (mother only) essentially asked me what right I had. I said the same right she'd have to confront someone if she saw them feeding their kids rat poison in public! I'm still not sure why, in the heat of the moment, I came up with that example - it confused both of us!

Yes - it was rude, obnoxious - pretentious perhaps (though it wasnt "wrong") and yet I feel little need to excuse myself. I did what I did. I probably wouldnt do it again - unless a particularly egregious example presented itself again!

 

[RSLancastr]

Yes - it was rude, obnoxious - pretentious perhaps (though it wasnt "wrong") and yet I feel little need to excuse myself. I did what I did. I probably wouldnt do it again - unless a particularly egregious example presented itself again!

 

[asthmatic camel]

In our house, there is candy of several sorts in the kitchen pantry closet. There is a bowl more or lress full of whatever's in the pantry in the kitchen. The kids are free to fill the bowl when and if they want, raid the bowl, raid the pantry (well, for candy, cereal, crackers, whatever....), or whatever. There's also cheddar, other cheese, fresh fruit, etc, in the fridge. There's usually homemade bread and some kind of desert thing lurking about too.

I rather enjoy lurking in JJ's fridge even if it is a little cramped.

Regards

AC

 

[Phaycops]

Earthborn--

If French food is so bad for you, why are the French people on the whole not fat?

 

[Earthborn]

Well, that's pretty obvious. They probably don't eat much gourmet food. I wrote about French Cuisine, not regular everyday food.

 

[jj]

I rather enjoy lurking in JJ's fridge even if it is a little cramped.

Regards

AC

So that's the pair of eyes my wife has been complaining about in the back of the fridge?

You just keep your snout out of that 4lbs of Ranier cherries I know went in there a few hours ago!